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July 14, 2018

India tells Russia to go ahead with FGFA project; says it may join at a later stage

India has conveyed to
Russia that it will not be part of the project now to develop a
fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) and may join the programme at a
later stage, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today.

"It
was conveyed to Russia that they can go ahead with the project and we
may join it at a later stage," the defence minister told reporters.

India's
decision came after years of negotiations between the two countries
could not yield concrete result on various contentious issues including
sharing of cost of the project which was estimated at around USD 30
billion or Rs 2 lakh crore.

India and Russia had signed an
inter-governmental agreement for the mega project in 2007, vowing to
take the military ties between the two strategic partners to the next
level.

However, the project has been stuck for the last 11 years
as there have been serious differences between the two sides on sharing
cost of developing the jet, technologies to be used in it and number of
aircraft to be produced, sources said.

To a separate question,
Sitharaman said the government is adopting a layered approach to achieve
the final goal of theatre command and that the thrust was on a
bottom-up approach.

She also said that a high-level committee
has been set up to recommend cost of military platforms being developed
by various defence public sector undertakings.

She said the
panel will initially take up development of Tejas Light Combat Aircraft
which is being developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and the
report is likely to be submitted in two months.

Replying to another question, she said government was going to unveil defence procurement policy soon.